ANGIE MILES: What is the state of transportation in our state?

How are Virginians traveling to, from, and around the commonwealth?

We're about to take a closer look at Virginia's transportation past, present, and future.

You're watching VPM News Focal Point.

Production funding for VPM News Focal Point is provided by The estate of Mrs. Ann Lee Saunders Brown.

And by... ♪ ♪ ANGIE MILES: Welcome to VPM News Focal Point.

I'm Angie Miles.

In this episode, we'll take a look at Virginia's transportation past, from roadway expansion that changed neighborhoods, to railways that also hint at Virginia's future.

We're going to explore the highways and byways of Virginia.

And we begin with a well-traveled portion of interstate.

If you've driven through Virginia on I-95 you're probably familiar with the busy stretch between Fredericksburg and Washington.

The traffic there is ranked among the worst in the nation.

News producer Adrienne McGibbon explains how the Virginia Department of Transportation hopes to get rid of traffic congestion and I-95's bad reputation.

CHANTAL LEGAULT: There's a lot of traffic, most of the time.

MARILYN GECI: It took us an hour extra with all the construction, waiting in line to get through.

MARVIN ROSS: Ever since I've came to this area in 2012, there's always been construction somewhere along this stretch.

ADRIENNE MCGIBBON: In 2017, it was called "the worst traffic hotspot" in the country DARRAGH FRYE: And, since then, we have invested nearly a billion dollars on improving your drive on I-95.

ADRIENNE MCGIBBON: Since 2018, the Virginia Department of Transportation has been managing multiple construction projects over 16 miles of I-95, north of Fredericksburg.

VDOT has two goals, extend the express lanes between DC and Fredericksburg, and add local travel lanes for traffic around Fredericksburg.

VDOT already added three southbound lanes on I-95, between Routes 3 and 17.

Crews are adding three more lanes in the same stretch, heading north.

VDOT says separating local traffic from through traffic will smooth the trip on one of Virginia's busiest roads.

DARRAGH FRYE: Approximately 9 million trucks, and $200 billion worth of goods travel on the I-95 corridor every year, and that's second to only I-81 in Virginia.

ADRIENNE MCGIBBON: VDOT says construction on the northbound lanes of traffic should be done by early 2024, and just north of Fredericksburg, those 10 miles of reversible express lanes, those should be complete by the end of the year.

DARRAGH FRYE: We anticipate a very intense summer of overnight work zones so we're asking drivers with destinations outside of the Fredericksburg area, to seek an alternate route.

ANGIE MILES: As construction nears an end, Frye is asking drivers to be patient and slow down to protect other travelers, as well as construction workers.

ANGIE MILES: Roadway construction is one of the top challenges cited by people of Virginia, when we asked them to name their chief transportation concerns.

We heard about flat tires because of construction debris, and we heard concerns about hydroplaning because of new sealants being used on the state's roads.

What else is problematic?

DWAINE ROLLSTON: Gas prices, the price of public transportation now, and people who live close to work, maybe they should walk some in nice days like this 'cause it would help on climate change and pollution and stuff too.

TERRA DAVIS: The challenge is to me is the conditions of the roads.

You definitely find a lot of mishandled pavement and potholes.

And then also as far as the amount of lanes that are available for the amount of volume of cars that's on the road.

BRADLEY KENT: Some of these cities around here, the traffic lights and all that with all the blinking.

Yeah, have you all ever seen those, the, you know, the real distracting traffic lights and all that?

Super confusing, super confusing, and not a big believer in roundabouts.

We keep putting roundabouts in everywhere in the town, and they're just not necessary.

I think they make things worse.

ANGIE MILES: Another concern expressed by Bradley Kent, better safety measures needed for Virginians who ride motorcycles.

In Northern Virginia, there's an innovative approach to getting children to and from school on Fridays.

It's the Arlington Bicibus, or bike bus.

Which started during the pandemic as a way to deal with the limited school bus capacity.

Gillian Burgess leads this pack of children, including her own, to Escuela Key Elementary in Ballston.

She says, it's a joyful way to start the school day and educate children about getting around on their own.

It also heightens safety awareness for the students, pedestrians, and drivers.

While biking has become a popular mode of transportation all over, cycling safety is paramount.

According to data from the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, so far this year there have been five cycling fatalities in our state.

That's a 150% increase from this time last year.

Now, Richmond riders are calling for a more protected infrastructure to improve cycling safety.

Multimedia journalist, Keyris Manzanares, brings us the story.

TREY DUNNAVILLE: The community.

I love riding with my friends, you know, going different places, but it's definitely riding with my friends.

That's definitely the most enjoyable part.

KEYRIS MAZANARES: Trey Dunnaville is a cyclist and president of the Richmond Area Bicycling Association.

When biking, he says these concerns come to mind.

TREY DUNNAVILLE: Like, I think about what's the traffic going to be like on there.

Are there bike lanes that I can use?

You know, those are, those come up the most.

Is there, you know, a trail that I can access when I'm riding, you know, what time of day it's going to be.

We might run into a lot of traffic.

I just don't know.

I've not done the parade.

So just making you all aware of that.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: Dunnaville says although Virginia law requires drivers to pass bicyclists at a safe distance of no less than three feet and encourages sharing the road, this doesn't always happen.

TREY DUNNAVILLE: No, people do not always share the road.

People are not nice about sharing the road but that's, you know, understanding that the road can be used for drivers, people in cars, and for bikes and for people walking or running.

So it's like, it's a road that can be used for everyone.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: Barry Greene, Jr. is a public transit advocate.

Because of his commitment to the cause, he is currently without a car by choice but biking in the city has its challenges.

BARRY GREENE JR: I share my location with my wife for one because hit and runs are very high, unfortunately.

I also play music on a speaker on my bicycle.

I use lights.

I use anything that I can possibly use to ensure that I'm seen and I'm heard because there are a lot of distracted, you know, drivers on the road.

And so if I'm doing the best I can to make sure that, you know, I wear a hi vis helmet.

I wear light colors.

I do everything on the checklist to make sure I'm seen and it's just to take that extra precaution.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: Greene says changes need to be made to protect bicyclists and promote safety on the road.

BARRY GREENE JR: For one, I would like to see more protected infrastructure.

We use cement for parking lots.

I would love to see cement used for bike lanes.

Bike infrastructure is people infrastructure and I would love to commute more if we had these options where I knew I was protected more than just paint.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: Emily Monroe is the community engagement coordinator for Sports Backer's Bike Walk RVA.

EMILY MONROE: We're really infrastructure forward.

You know, we feel like infrastructure is going to solve a lot of the issues.

Statistically, where you see bike lanes, you have less fatalities and injuries from people involved in traffic accidents and drivers drive slower.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: Infrastructure changes include more protected bike lanes and crosswalks, and designing roads with people and bikes in mind, not just cars.

EMILY MONROE: So we have a project that we host called the Richmond Bikeways Map, and it shows all the different types of ways to safely bike and walk around Richmond and sort of the surrounding areas.

You can scroll through the website and see different types of bike lanes.

It helps you start to identify what they look like.

So, as you're riding them, you get a feel for, "oh, this is a standard bike lane", or, "oh, I'm behind little bollards, this is a protected bike lane.

” KEYRIS MANZANARES: With the uptick in fatalities involving cyclists in our state, Dunnaville says driver awareness is key to preventing tragedies.

TREY DUNNAVILLE: Outside of, you know, more, you know, cycling pedestrian infrastructure kind of being built, it's more driver awareness so people understand what it means to ride safely by a cyclist.

You know, giving 'em a three feet distance, understanding the laws that apply for cyclists when they're out on the road, and just really be kinder to people who are just out on their bikes.

Like, it's a shame how, you know, mean people can be.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: When it comes to bike safety, Dunnaville says he hopes- TREY DUNNAVILLE: That everyone can, like, you know, go on a bike ride and get from one destination to the next without being harassed or injured.

ANGIE MILES: DMV says bicyclists should dress for safety.

This includes wearing a helmet, maximizing visibility with brightly colored and reflective clothing, and making sure pant legs are not loose.

Adding reflective tape to the bicycle is another way to help drivers see cyclists.

ANGIE MILES: VPM News Focal Point is interested in the points of view of Virginians.

To hear more from your Virginia neighbors, and to share your own thoughts and story ideas, find us online at vpm.org/focalpoint.

ANGIE MILES: In the course of transportation history progress has always come at a cost.

To make room for new roads and highways, the government can use its right of eminent domain to take ownership of private property.

Entire communities have sometimes been decimated.

That was the case in the 1950s for one of Richmond's most historic Black neighborhoods.

70 years later, the city is eyeing plans to reconnect what was torn apart by using a federal grant of more than $1 million.

But will this correction be enough?

Producer Pam Hervey brings us this report.

GARY FLOWERS: Jackson Ward was initially set apart from the rest of the city.

300 Black-owned businesses, seven Black-owned insurance companies five Black-owned banks, before 1900.

Culturally, Jackson Ward was known as the Harlem of the South and so the hotels were cultural havens for the Duke Ellingtons, the Ella Fitzgeralds.

And so there was a plethora of restaurants and jazz clubs.

It was a very festive time.

PAM HERVEY: In the 1930s, the federal government began a discriminatory practice called redlining, which designated Black neighborhoods in major cities across the U.S. as risky investments, thereby denying Black residents certain financial services and the ability to gain wealth.

J. MAURICE HOPKINS: Redlining destroyed the whole Jackson Ward community.

Everything was in walking distance and it was a community, not like it is today.

PAM HERVEY: In 1954, the Virginia General Assembly approved the construction of the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike through the City of Richmond.

390 acres of public and private land across the city were taken using the government's legal right of eminent domain to build what was originally a toll road.

GARY FLOWERS: What is now known is Interstate 95, or as it was called then, the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike, was deliberately placed in the middle of Black Wall Street, Jackson Ward, when only eight blocks away to the north was a natural, topographical ravine, known as the Shockoe Valley.

PAM HERVEY: By the time the turnpike was finished four years later, more than 7,000 residents were displaced, businesses closed, and schools demolished, most significantly in Richmond's Jackson Ward, where the highway split the community in half and disconnected families from easy access to stores, libraries, and banks.

J. MAURICE HOPKINS: If you went to school and lived on the other side of the turnpike, you could remain in that school.

But if you live on this side, which is north of the turnpike, you had to transfer from your school and go to another school.

GARY FLOWERS: There is no doubt of the proven injury to Black families in their homes lost, their schools lost, their businesses lost, their property lost.

PAM HERVEY: According to the Richmond 300 Master Plan for Growth, adopted by City Council in 2020, one of the six big moves is to reconnect the city by capping highways in order to reknit neighborhoods destroyed by the interstate.

MARITZA PECHIN: So my office is the Office of Equitable Development and I am the deputy director in charge of the office.

We work on implementing the city-wide Master Plan, Richmond 300.

Secretary Buttigieg came over to Richmond in December of 2021 to see for himself what the highway had done to Jackson Ward and to hear from community members directly about it.

PAM HERVEY: It was during this tour that Buttigieg heard first-hand about the Reconnect Jackson Ward Project, a proposal to construct a freeway cap from 1st Street to Chamberlayne over the interstate, a project recently awarded $1.35 million of federal funding from the Reconnecting Communities Pilot Grant Program.

MARITZA PECHIN: There was a lot of different people who were talking about wanting to cap over the highway.

And so the first thing we did was work on a feasibility study and that was just to understand, what's the canvas that we can work in to sketch out a reconnect project.

So we looked at kind of a big, broad section from Belvidere to 2nd Street, trying to understand what, within that whole area, would be most feasible to cap over.

And we ended up narrowing it down from 1st to Chamberlayne / Brook Road as being the four segments that were most feasible.

PAM HERVEY: Constructing freeway caps in cities across the U.S. after the roads are built is a difficult and costly challenge.

Some believe it to be a worthy investment as it could provide new green spaces or offer community members easier access to jobs, groceries, healthcare, and other services.

DAVID LAMBERT: The Lambert family's been in this area since '60, probably before that.

My father, Senator Benjamin Lambert, had his optometry practice down here for over 50 plus years.

It's fantastic to see, one, the city is really embracing the change into a new era, and two, it's a healing process to help keep the healing from the past going to the future.

So my vision is really having a thriving, like a middle class African American or minority neighborhood, like they have in Atlanta, Georgia, that you can drive through it and it's like, "Wow, what's this over here?"

Restaurants and housing.

If you embrace it and build this group up and the area up, everybody wins.

MARITZA PECHIN: The community engagement was really robust and there were a lot of hard conversations.

The big thing that was one big theme that community members brought up over and over again was that the project needed to elevate and expand Black ownership, history, and culture.

They also talked a lot about reparations to address past harms and how to ensure that Reconnect Jackson Ward and another project we're doing, the Jackson Ward Community Plan for Redeveloping Gilpin, how those benefit Black Americans.

PAM HERVEY: According to the feasibility study, the cost of the project could be anywhere from $100 million to $400 million.

This Reconnecting Communities grant will go to creating more accurate visual representations of what the freeway cap might look like and will continue the project moving forward.

MARITZA PECHIN: We know the canvas that we can paint within, but now we need to start painting, and that is where the Reconnect Communities Pilot Program funding will help us, to really draw out that vision for the community.

PAM HERVEY: But to some in the Jackson Ward community, moving the project into the future still means the city is overlooking the past.

GARY FLOWERS: A historically bisected section of any city would welcome federal dollars.

The question becomes, what would those federal dollars do and how will they address the past so that we may go into the future together?

J. MAURICE HOPKINS: Jackson Ward will never be the same.

It can't be, it's impossible.

You can't make this America the way it was.

ANGIE MILES: Virginia received a second Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program grant for the City of Norfolk.

Changes are proposed for Interstate 264, which was completed in the '70s.

That highway cut through historically Black neighborhoods on the waterfront and around Norfolk State University.

The city will now use its $1.6 million in federal funding to study best options for reconnecting its communities.

ANGIE MILES: Virginians use many different modes of transportation to traverse the Commonwealth.

How will travel by bus, plane, and train change over the next few decades?

Here to address this are Bud Oakey, president of the Virginia Aviation Business Association.

Adrienne Torres, who's chief of staff for the Greater Richmond Transit Company, and DJ Stadtler, executive director of the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority.

The future of travel in many people's, and many experts estimation means getting fewer cars on the road, having fewer single passenger vehicles, and moving to something that is more advantageous safety-wise and otherwise, You have, of course, the Pulse in the Richmond metro area.

Talk about what the Pulse, the changes with the Pulse have meant and what your goals are looking forward.

ADRIENNE TORRES: Absolutely.

So the Pulse was implemented in 2018 and it was done in parallel with the network redesign for the city as well as expansion routes in Henrico County.

But the Pulse itself was really successful where we had assumed we'd have about 3,500 individuals using it a day.

And before the pandemic we were about 8,000.

We have been hearing in the news in recent days and weeks about derailments.

Talk a little bit about that.

DJ STADTLER: Really that's the number one priority of any passenger rail system is ensuring the safety and reliability of the movement.

But the industry is creating technology that will let you know through hotbox detectors, for example, when you've got an axle that's getting hot, when you have problems on the train.

It's similar to what you see in automobiles.

Where 20 years ago, if there was a problem with your car, you'd have to look around and say, well, what's going on here?

Now something happens, you get a code, and, you know B3, and you're like, oh, I know exactly what that is.

That same technology is coming to passenger trains and and it's already here.

ANGIE MILES: Air, it maintains its status as the king of safe travel.

Right?

BUD OAKEY: The Virginia Department of Aviation has done an exceptional job over the last 15, 20 years in assuring that we have more approaches at more Virginia airports.

And what the approaches mean is we can come in as instrument pilots and fly those approaches to lower altitudes, come in at lower altitudes, make those approaches, which make those airports more accessible.

And as a pilot, that makes it more safer for us to fly.

The FAA, we would ask that the FAA could move faster to keep up with advancing technologies 'cause we have technologies that enable a safer flying environment.

But we need a regulatory environment that can keep up with the changes in the technology, the faster we can adapt to these technologies and utilize these technology, the safer environments we're going to have.

ANGIE MILES: All right.

Gazing into that crystal ball, looking 10 years, 20 years, 50 years into the future, what are we seeing?

DJ STADTLER: So we're three very different modes but we all need to work together.

You can take the train to Richmond, but if the Pulse isn't there to pick you up and take you to your home, you're missing that leg.

And so that continued integration perhaps even one ticket that it'll take you from the Pulse, to the train, to the airport.

That's really the technology and the connection that needs to happen.

ANGIE MILES: You can watch the full interview on our website.

ANGIE MILES: A century after the golden age of railroads, trains are actually considered among the safest and most energy efficient ways to move people and cargo.

In addition to national and regional juggernauts like Amtrak and Norfolk Southern, there are hundreds of smaller short line railroads.

Virginia has several of those, and the largest in the state is the Buckingham Branch Railroad.

President Steve Powell shares a little of their history as he contemplates the role of rail for Virginians.

(train horn blowing) STEVE POWELL: The Buckingham Branch is primarily a freight railroad and when a customer wants to move a product across the country, we'll move the car to CSX or Norfolk Southern, and then they'll move it across the country to wherever it belongs.

The Buckingham Branch Railroad started in 1988.

We ran first trains.

Bob Bryant was the founder of the railroad and he worked for CSX for his whole career.

And when he retired, he purchased a small railroad in his home county, Buckingham County.

And it was just a small railroad, had 17 miles and they ran trains three days a week and worked on track two days a week.

There was only two employees.

Back in 2005, we acquired the Richmond & Allegheny Division, which was a 200-mile section that goes from Richmond through Charlottesville and Staunton over to Clifton Forge.

We got two more Divisions.

We've got the Virginia Southern Division, which we got in 2017, and then in 2019, we got our Norfolk division which is a small section over between Norfolk and Virginia Beach.

So we've grown a lot.

CSX runs big freight trains across us.

Amtrak runs passenger service across us.

Last year we decided to get into doing our own passenger excursions, but yet the demand has been incredible.

The tickets do sell out very quickly.

Well, you don't have traffic out there.

It's not like you've got cars passing by you or people you know, walking along the sidewalk while you're having lunch, and so you just got get to enjoy some scenery that, in a perspective that you don't see, you know, any other way than through the back trails and rails, you know, through the unexplored areas of Virginia.

Virginia has a long, long history of railroads.

You know, the line that we have that goes between Richmond and Clifton Forge, Richmond & Allegheny Division is one of the very beginnings of the C&O railroad from back in the mid 1800s, when you look at the steam engines and what they were able to do compared to what no one had ever seen before.

And then in the 1950s, they started transferring over to diesel powered locomotives instead of the steam and so some of the locomotives that we run are still the very first vintage diesel locomotives.

We have some locomotives that were built in the 1950s and we still run them today.

And so I think that's why people are attracted to passenger trains and excursion trains because it is just you know, a little more relaxed step back in time.

There's a big boom in passenger rail right now and Virginia is a huge part of that.

(train horn) ANGIE MILES: We've talked about planes, trains, and automobiles, but also cars, buses, and bikes.

And you can review these stories and find more resources on our website.

And see our complete interview on travel.

That's vpm.org/focalpoint.

We're interested in hearing your feedback and story ideas as well.

Thank you for being with us.

And we hope you'll join us next time.

Production funding for VPM News Focal Point is provided by The estate of Mrs. Ann Lee Saunders Brown.

And by... ♪ ♪